A Waltz for Wittgen and Gertrude Steinway

and home an octave higher call me back

to exercises exercises we do me fa exercises

Anna lies is exorcizes

in le blanc blanc key of see sol fa across the sea

allegro allegretto Allegheny

down the Gulf Stream to calm the distant shores

mad line cut fine don’t forge it

assign design one stone French stone

da capo Christofori soft-loud step by step

and roll it up behind you.

Sign nature alpine black forest

climb from peak to cloudy peak

test chemical against geometrical lines

alkaline coastline dateline deadline guideline saline skyline

excepting decline incline recline leaning against

crystalline madeleine opaline sibylline or

so soft the soda shore

so loud the blue waves roar

as though the night and day

as though another way

recalls the white horizon

not the swerve the lean the strange attractor

where glisten reflecting facets of memory

where milky iridescence will foretell

where echoes of the moon calm every swell.

That’s my business isn’t it, what I wear?

Well, I don’t think so.

What you wear you can’t shut up.

So schildishly call about

what you wear in sign language

in finger signals in hand signals

in gestures in postures

with fingers hands and arms

with movements of the body

with many movements of the face

with broadway rhythm

gotta dance gotta dance

the forking pathillogical sine of the tines.

Waltzing in the trenches entwining signs

assigning everyone to read

confessing it was all wrong

confessing it was not to be believed

but believing in a code countersigned

in rooms flowing with arpeggios

broken duck or rabbit chords.

Now everybody—

a one and a two and a

climb every matter— er—ladder.

When he said he died happy was that a private joke?

It is obvious that “if a lion could talk we could not understand him”

is wrong because for all we know it’s lion talk.

a lie a lisp

a lone a last

a loved a long

a latter a litter

a letter a ladder